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ROMNEY REBOUND? After weeks of taking a beating in the media and from Republicans, Mitt Romney is finally catching some breaks, and is poised for a surge in more positive coverage IF he exceeds expectations tonight. A number of things broke his way in the past 24 hours. None of them, alone, suggests anything profound. But in totality, they offer Republicans reason for hope coming out of tonight: 1) The Biden gaffe referring to "a middle class that has been buried the last four years." Voters seem aware of who was in charge during those years. 2) The 2007 videotape of then-Senator Obama that surfaced last night and rocketed through right-wing media. The N.Y. Times and WashPost ignored it on their homepages this morning, but conservatives will force the MSM and voters to reckon with it. No doubt, some of the quotes could be used against President Obama. 3) A new NBC-WSJ-Marist poll shows Virginia and Florida tightening, and there is evidence that Romney efforts to target Hispanics in swing states is blunting Obama's edge. 4) It all comes down to tonight. If Romney rocks, he will put concerns about message and his campaign team to rest for a few days -- and put tougher attention back on Obama.

--NBCNews.com: “Romney within striking distance.” POLLS TIGHTEN enough that “a great performance by Romney tonight could change the dynamic,” per “Morning” Joe Scarborough. … Mark McKinnon: Romney is “headed the right direction.” … Mike Barnicle: “It’s going to be a jump-ball election, three or four weeks from now. It’s gonna be within two or three points – it’s that close out in the country.”

FORMAT FOR TONIGHT’S DEBATE (9 to 10:30 p.m. ET, at the University of Denver’s Magness Arena, inside the Daniel L. Ritchie Center for Sports and Wellness), per a debate official: “It goes 90 min. straight-up -- no breaks. First three 15-min. segments are economy [Economy I, II, III], 4th segment health care, 5th is ‘the role of government’ and last is ‘governing.’ Then closing statements, so segments will be less than 15.”

--AP’s Nancy Benac and Kasie Hunt: “The moderator, PBS newsman Jim Lehrer, will open each 15-minute segment with a question, and then Obama and Romney will have two minutes apiece to answer. After that, it's up to Lehrer to keep the conversation going and to intervene if one candidate goes too long. … Romney and Obama debate again Oct. 16 in Hempstead, N.Y., and Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla. Biden and Ryan have their debate on Oct. 11 in Danville, Ky. …

“Former President Bill Clinton will be in Boston on Wednesday night for Obama, with donors paying $20,000 a person. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is headlining a New York fundraiser. The Obama campaign plans more than 4,000 debate-watching events around the country. And Biden is scheduled to hold a live discussion with supporters that will be streamed online after the debate. The Romney camp planned 336 debate parties at restaurants, bars, grills, VFW halls and other sites concentrated in battleground states.”

JIM LEHRER, in the 2012 paperback update to his memoir, “Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates” (writing before he had been selected for tonight): “I strongly recommend that it be standard practice to advise debate hall audiences in advance that they are expected to remain absolutely silent during a debate. They are invited guests, not participants. The moderator should remind the would-be cheerleaders and boobirds of the rules and enforce them when necessary. That has been the long-established practice in the fall general election debates. … There have been thirty-five nationally television presidential and vice presidential debates, counting [the] first one in 1960 [Kennedy-Nixon] and the last four in 2008.

“All the moderators have been broadcast journalists except one – Chicago Sun-Times editor James Hoge in 1976. There have been several repeaters: Howard K. Smith of CBS and ABC, Edwin Newman of NBC, Barbara Walters of ABC, Bernard Shaw of CNN, Bob Schieffer of CBS, my PBS colleague Gwen Ifill, and I account for twenty-one [now 22] of the thirty-five [now 36] moderating assignments. … The first … was for a 1988 debate between Vice President George H.W. Bush and Governor Michael Dukakis in Winston-Salem.”

--TONIGHT: POLITICO Live begins debate coverage at 8 p.m. ET, carrying the full debate, plus pre-game and wrap-up shows anchored by Jim VandeHei, with live shots from POLITICOs in the Mile High City. Livestreams on POLITICO.com and our apps. C-SPAN 2 will carry the wrap-up show at 10:30 p.m. ET. NewsChannel 8 will the coverage beginning at 8:30 p.m.

SPOTTED, at Obama debate camp in Henderson, Nev.: Robert Barnett, the superlawyer who helped now-Secretary Clinton prepare for 23 debates AGAINST Obama – and occasionally PLAYED Obama. This is Bob’s ninth debate-prep rodeo: He helped Walter Mondale prepare for the veep debate against Bob Dole in 1976, and has been involved in Democratic debate prep for every presidential election since -- except 1996, when he was recused because his wife, Rita Braver, was a White House correspondent. This time, Bob has been helping Sen. John Kerry (along with his chief of staff, David Wade, @davideckelswade), prepare for the Romney role.

TIME releases cover a day early, “THE FACT WARS: Who Is Telling the Truth: (Check one) Romney … Obama?” … “Blue Truth, Red Truth: Both candidates say White House hopefuls should talk straight with voters. Here’s why neither man is ready to take his own advice,” by Michael Scherer: “The great irony in this curious chapter in American politics is that both campaigns have made telling the truth a central message and a core qualification in each man’s case to be President. … But when the final book is written on this campaign, one-sided deception will still have played a central role. As it stands, the very notions of fact and truth are employed in American politics as much to distort as to reveal. And until the voting public demands something else, not just from the politicians they oppose but also from the ones they support, there is little reason to suspect that will change.” See the cover http://bit.ly/VfJAmj

FIRST LOOK: Three years ago today, a remote U.S. outpost in Afghanistan -- sitting at the bottom of three steep mountains, 14 miles from the Pakistan border -- was attacked by more than 300 insurgents. Fifty-three American troops fought valiantly to defend their embattled camp in what would end up the deadliest day for the U.S. in Afghanistan that year. ABC News' Jake Tapper has spent two years working on an epic account of that battle and the troops who served there, in THE OUTPOST: AN UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN VALOR (Little Brown & Co.), which comes out the week after the election, on Nov. 13. Today, on the three year anniversary of that attack, we honor the service and sacrifice of those troops with this excerpt from Tapper's book.” http://on.fb.me/O4J8nY

** A message from Walmart: What’s on the minds of Walmart Moms? Bi-partisan research about what matters most to this group of swing voters shows a strong interest in the debates with a desire for real details and a focus on the economy, education and healthcare. See for yourself what they have to say at www.walmartmomsresearch.com **

THE BIG PICTURE – N.Y. Times Quotation of the Day, from LAWRENCE NORDEN, of the Brennan Center for Justice of the New York University School of Law: “Every voter restriction that has been challenged this year has been either enjoined, blocked or weakened. It has been an extraordinary string of victories for those opposing these laws.”

4 THINGS TO WATCH AT DEBATE -- Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush: “1) Can Romney win the first half-hour? … Romney’s got a difficult task, which is to be aggressive without attacking the president with high personal approval ratings too fiercely. He has to seem tough but also presidential, assertive but not snide. He has to accuse Obama of not being honest with voters, without sounding shrill. … He needs to go in relaxed, without memorizing his briefing book to the point of paralysis. … [T]he fact that he started laying out a few new policy statements 48 hours before the debate [immigration and tax reform] suggests he knows tough questions are coming. The first half hour of a presidential debate tends to be when the tone is set. Romney needs to score points, quick and early. The good news for Romney is that reporters love a comeback story, which is only bolstering his chances of decent coverage the next day.

“2) How hard will Obama attack? … [H]ow to seem civil while trashing Romney to his face is probably the biggest challenge facing the incumbent Wednesday. The genius of 2008 was Obama’s ability to slam his opponents through the use of code words, casting John McCain and Bill Clinton as icons of a bygone era, who needed to be dispatched into dignified retirement. …

“3) How do ‘47 percent’ and Libya play? … There is a substantial chance that either candidate says something new, and memorable, when answering a question about one of those topics, which have posed problems for Romney and Obama, respectively, over the last few weeks. There’s a moderate chance both do. … Romney aides privately concede the remark hurt him in their internal tracking — a fact they made clear when the candidate, a few days after doubling down on the original remarks, told a Univision forum he supports ‘the 100 percent of America.”’ How Romney answers any question on the topic will be very important. … The president … has not had to address the issue since the latest [Libya] information came out.

NEW THIS A.M. – Gallup.com, “Romney Maintains Economic Edge Heading Into Debates: Obama rated better on most other issues, personal characteristics,” by Jeffrey M. Jones: “Americans continue to give Romney at least a slight edge in terms of which presidential candidate is better able to handle the economy. However, Romney's advantage has decreased in comparison to earlier in the campaign. … 50% say the economy will be better if Romney is elected and 35% worse, for a net score of +15. Obama's net score on the same question is +8, with 48% predicting the economy would be better in four years if he is re-elected and 40% saying … worse. … based on a Sept. 24-27 USA Today/Gallup poll.” http://bit.ly/RbA3HF

--Sean Hannity, at the top of his 9 p.m. “Hannity,” on Fox News: “On the eve of the first presidential debate, a bombshell is about to be dropped on the 2012 race for the White House. Because tonight, you will hear from Barack Obama like you have NEVER heard from him before. A video has been uncovered from a campaign event [at Hampton (Va.) University on June 5,] 2007 of then-candidate Obama speaking before an audience of African-American ministers, including the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. …

“It contains some of the most divisive class-warfare and racially charged rhetoric ever used by Barack Obama. … This is further proof that the mainstream media has been in the pocket of Barack Obama since the day that he arrived on the national stage. Now let's take a look at what the left-wing press has been hiding since 2007. … Obama … injects a heavy dose of racially charged rhetoric into his remarks. … This is what so-called unbiased journalists have been trying to hide … A glimpse into the mind of the real Barack Obama … It’s pretty explosive stuff.”

“I just want to give you one example, because this … steams me up. This wasn’t in the prepared remarks. … Down in New Orleans, where they still have not rebuilt 20 months later. there's a law -- federal law, when you get reconstruction money from the federal government, called the Stafford [Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance] Act, and basically it says: When you get federal money, you gotta give a 10 percent match. The local government's got to come up with 10 percent. Every $10 federal government comes up with, local government's gotta give a dollar. Now here's the thing: When 9/11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act, saying; ‘This is too serious a problem. We can't expect New York City to rebuild on its own. Forget that -- that dollar you gotta put in. Well, here's $10.’ And that was the right thing to do. … What's happening down in New Orleans? Where's your dollah? … Makes no sense. …

“[T]hat's why we need additional federal public transportation dollars flowing to the highest-need communities. We don't NEED to build more highways out in the suburbs, if we had people in the cities right now who want to work but have no way to gettin’ to those jobs. We’ve gotta help connect them to the jobs that exist. We should be investing in minority-owned businesses in our neighborhoods so people don't HAVE to travel from miles away.”

--Ben LaBolt, Obama campaign national press secretary: “In a transparent attempt to change the subject from his comments attacking half of the American people, Mitt Romney’s allies recirculated video of a 2007 event that was open to and extensively covered by the press at the time. The only thing shocking about this is that they apparently think it’s wrong to suggest that we should help returning veterans, children leaving foster care and other members of Mitt Romney’s 47 percent get training that will allow them to find the best available jobs.”

--PLAYBOOK FACTS OF LIFE: This release is a base-mobilization exercise, reminding Republicans to vote, even if they’re lukewarm about Romney. This video of SENATOR Obama – at this point, an announced presidential candidate -- is jarring because this isn’t the tone, content or grammar we’re used to hearing from PRESIDENT Obama. He’s playing to the crowd. It’s like the pronounced twang President George W. Bush broke out when speaking in rural areas – places where the audience had “more hats than ties,” as he put it.

VIDEO 2 --“Paul Ryan: 30 Percent 'Want Welfare State,' 70 Percent 'Want The American Dream'” -- HuffPost’s Ryan Grim: “Ryan's comments were delivered as part of his keynote address at The American Spectator's 2011 Robert L. Bartley Gala Dinner, which the magazine posted online. A reader tipped HuffPost to Ryan's speech, given in November -- six months before Romney's videotaped remarks.”

--CHAIRMAN RYAN: “Those of you who know me, I’m kind of a numbers guys. … 70 percent of Americans get more benefits from the federal government in dollar value than they pay back in taxes. … The good news is: Survey after survey, poll after poll, still shows that we are a center-right, 70-30, country. 70 percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe the American. Only 30 percent want the welfare state. What that tells us: At least half those people who are currently in that category are there not of their wish or their will. … They’re down on their luck, they’re out of their job, they’re back in school. They want the American idea, and they want their kids to be better off.” http://huff.to/T0oNCu

--PLAYBOOK FACTS OF LIFE: Mitt Romney would be BETTER OFF if he had expressed his 47-percent point in Ryan’s language, which acknowledges those who don’t WANT or CHOOSE to be on government assistance.

THE CANDIDATES AS BRANDS: a poll out today that used methods for measuring the effectiveness of corporate branding, applied to political candidates -- Mackenzie Weinger: “Pollsters from the Democratic firm of Penn Schoen Berland said … Obama is successfully making the election a referendum on Republicans, while Romney’s attempt to make the race a referendum on the last four years is falling flat with voters. And the Republican hopeful had only one theme that was breaking through with independent voters -- his attacks on Obama’s handling of violence in the Middle East … Of the 24 messages tested — 12 quotes by each candidate from their convention addresses and subsequent stump speeches — the top eight were all from Obama. Obama’s highest scoring message was his line at the Democratic Convention: … ‘we have been there, we’ve tried that, and we’re not going back.’ Romney’s … most compelling message [was] his convention line: [‘What America needs is] jobs. Lots of jobs,’ … in ninth. …

“The company used its trademarked ‘Master Message’ system and conducted the poll online to expose people to lengthy quotes. … Obama’s top two testing messages set up Romney as supportive of old Bush-era policies that have failed in the past … Romney only has one message that is resonating with independents, [Billy Mann, Penn Schoen Berland’s managing director] said, and that’s his foreign policy critique of the president that ranked at number 12: ‘The President said the developments in the Middle East are “bumps in the road.” Bumps in the road? We had an ambassador assassinated. We had a Muslim Brotherhood member elected to the presidency of Egypt. Twenty thousand people have been killed in Syria. We have tumult in Pakistan, and of course Iran is that much closer to having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon,’ Romney said at a campaign event in Pueblo, Colo. on Sept. 24. …

“[T]he lowest scoring message overall was Romney’s ‘12 million jobs’ line from a campaign rally in Jefferson County, Colo. on Sept. 23, 2012: … ‘My choice will lead us on a path that will create 12 million new jobs and rising take-home pay.’ … Penn Schoen Berland polled 1,003 likely voters online from Sept. 28-Oct. 1.” http://politi.co/Wi21EU

WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- John Feehery emails: “Molly Kate Feehery has made her entrance … She arrived weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces. Mommy [Kerry] and Molly are both happy and healthy.”

** A message from Walmart: Walmart Moms say more compelling than the convention speeches is the debate setting, where candidates have to answer "on the spot" to the types of questions moms would like to ask of them. As such, these moms feel they will get good insight into what each man truly cares about and stands for as he presents his point of view. Chandler from Raleigh, NC offered this advice to both candidates: "Clearly articulate what your vision is. How you're going to get there, and be specific with your steps. Don't dumb it down for us, we're not dummies. Number two; tell us how you are going to bridge the aisle between the two political parties in order to facilitate action in our government." **

...aaaaaand right on cue the "liberal" media changes the narrative of the race from "Obama is running away with it" to "Oh- wait- what's this- It's...it's...Romney making a strong comeback...looks like we have a race after all, folks."

You're a fool if you think politics motivates the media. Just like everything else, it's money.

Oh, so now he's getting a break ? Maybe you know once he can speak to the American People without Pravda spinning it , the Polls may rise to the point you can no longer spin them as easily, you think ? If America goes ahead and re-hires this 'High- Schooler' after these debates , I don't know if we have a Nation that CAN be salvaged.

You say: 2) The 2007 videotape of then-Senator Obama that surfaced last night and rocketed through right-wing media. The N.Y. Times and WashPost ignored it on their homepages this morning, but conservatives will force the MSM and voters to reckon with it. No doubt, some of the quotes could be used against President Obama.

I believe this is one of your rare stumbles. This episode was covered extensively, one might even say ad nauseam by the MSM. Together with Biden's latest quote, it doesn't add up to a hill of beans. Sorry.